Saturday 13th May 2023 I thought it would be nice to report on a positive Bus Service Improvement Plan (BSIP) development so took a trip to Leighton Buzzard on Thursday to sample Arriva’s brand new bus network introduced on Tuesday in partnership with Central Bedfordshire Council. Central Beds got awarded £3.7 million for its BSIP;... Continue Reading →
Tuesday 25th April 2023 Last Friday Rob Jones, managing director, Stagecoach in Cumbria and North Lancashire (that name is going to need an update now Cumberland and Westmorland & Furness councils have replaced Cumbria) kindly invited me to the launch of the company’s circa £3 million investment in nine smart new Alexander Dennis Enviro400 MMC... Continue Reading →
Thursday 6th April 2023 As well as bright green buses in the West of England from Monday (see Tuesday's blog), this week has also seen the launch of a fleet of bright green buses on a new circular bus route around Leicester city centre. I paid a visit on Tuesday to take a look. Branded... Continue Reading →
Tuesday 21st March 2023 It’s not often a locally based community led climate action campaigning group puts its money where its mouth is and starts up a brand new route to encourage motorists to leave their cars at home and catch a bus instead. Even more rare it turns into a rip roaring success within... Continue Reading →
Tuesday 24th January 2023 No; not the motorway although obviously the M4 does go to Bristol. The clue is in the lower case 'm'. This is all about Bristol's latest new bus route as part of the city's metrobus branded network which began on Sunday. The new route m4 runs from Cribbs Causeway to the... Continue Reading →
Tuesday 26th July 2022 After last year’s return of an open top bus service along Southsea seafront following a nine year absence by Aldermaston Coach Lines, this year it’s the turn of First Portsmouth to try and make a go of it. Like Aldermaston’s foray First’s period of operation is the school summer break of... Continue Reading →
Saturday 21st May 2022 There’s been talk about how to solve the 'first and last mile' conundrum in transport circles for ages. Pre Covid, whole conferences were even devoted to pontificating on the best ways passengers could ‘transit’ from their rural/suburban based homes to reach trunk bus routes or railway lines for longer commutes and... Continue Reading →
Sunday 12th December 2021 West Midlands residents might think construction works which began on two major corridors across the conurbation (A34 and A45) a year ago are taking a marathon length of time but it’s all for a good cause, namely to introduce Sprint - the region’s new bus based rapid transport network with the... Continue Reading →
Monday 6th December 2021 Fareham and Gosport's much heralded 3.4 km busway, opened in April 2012, has just got a kilometre longer following yesterday’s opening of a southern extension taking it further down the former railway alignment between the towns. Costing around £11 million it gives First Hampshire and Dorset’s Eclipse branded buses on routes... Continue Reading →
Monday 30th August 2021 ‘Back in the day’ (I’m thinking the fifties and sixties) when the UK had a sizeable manufacturing industry and car ownership was much lower bus companies ran networks of routes to serve factories on industrial estates often sited on the edge of towns with journeys timed specifically to cater for workers’... Continue Reading →
Friday 20th August 2021 A new name to the open-top bus scene this year is Reading based coach operator Aldermaston Coach Lines, the trading name of Southern Coach Lines Ltd. It’s reportedly been nine years since Southsea enjoyed an open-top bus service but now Aldermaston owner and managing director Nick Morton has introduced a service... Continue Reading →
Friday 6th August 2021 After I’d checked out Exeter’s new bus station on Monday last week it seemed a good opportunity to take a ride on First South West’s new open-top Discover Exeter tour introduced at the end of May for the summer season. It’s part of the company’s suite of initiatives under the overarching... Continue Reading →
Sunday 13th January 2021 * that's Welsh for confusion. I’ve always liked the TrawsCymru network and brand. It’s grown in size and extent over the years providing frequent links across Wales, mostly on corridors where there’s no rail option. The branding is consistently applied thanks to the Transport for Wales policy of specifying and even... Continue Reading →
Wednesday 9th June 2021 It’s exactly five months since Arriva sold its Cannock based operations comprising about a dozen bus routes, 46 vehicles and the Delta Way bus garage to D&G Bus back on 9th January, so with a brand new service introduced last week, I thought it was a good time for a visit... Continue Reading →
Friday 2nd April 2021 It’s good to see Bournemouth’s Yellow Buses running open-top bus services again after a Covid enforced absence last year. My friend Ray Stenning and I took a trip to the lovely south coast resort today to have a ride. There are two routes this year, numbered 11 and 12. The former... Continue Reading →
Monday 29th March 2021 TfL's newest bus route numbered 456 began a couple of weeks ago on Saturday 13th March. As I remarked in my 6th March blog, introducing a brand new route when TfL is running a huge deficit with no certainty about future funding as well as during a pandemic lockdown seemed like... Continue Reading →
Wednesday 2nd September 2020 It's all change for the bus network serving Leeds Bradford Airport this week. Sunday saw Transdev Blazefield take over the three bus routes connecting Leeds, Bradford and Harrogate and introduce a smart new 'Flyer' brand. Social media coverage and photographs online looked very impressive so I popped up to Yorkshire yesterday... Continue Reading →
Tuesday 11th February 2020 New route 459 linking the small community of Iver in Buckinghamshire (just over the Greater London border) with Heathrow Airport's Terminal 5 entered its third and final phase of introduction at the beginning of this month so I thought I'd follow up my previous visit in November with another ride around... Continue Reading →
Saturday 25th January 2020 Bus route 497 linking unserved parts of Harold Hill in the London Borough of Havering with Harold Wood Station was first identified as a good idea by TfL bus planners in their 'Review of bus services in Harold Hill' report back in September 2016. This report took a look at new... Continue Reading →
Monday 6th January 2020 Universities are good business for bus companies. Many towns and cities benefit from having a network of attractive frequencies and buses running late into the night thanks to student travel. Despite this few, if any, University travel markets are hotly contested with competitive bus services. One exception is the University of... Continue Reading →
Tuesday 31st December 2019 Go-Ahead owned Carousel extended its High Wycombe to Uxbridge route 102 on to Heathrow Airport on Sunday; I took a ride yesterday to try it out. The route is part of the Chiltern Hundreds (routes numbered 101 to 105 - get it?) branded buses running between High Wycombe, Beaconsfield and Slough/Watford/Uxbridge... Continue Reading →
Saturday 7th December 2019 It's quite a day for fans of new bus routes in London. Christmas has come early for those who love new route numbers added to an already comprehensive bus network - I can't remember the last time four new routes were added all on the same day. The Mayor has been... Continue Reading →
Thursday 14th November 2019 It's becoming notable how many new and improved bus routes are being introduced with financial support from Heathrow Airport offering better connections for staff and airline travellers. Anyone would think there's a third runway in the offing. I wrote about First Bus's new RailAir link from Guildford to Heathrow when it... Continue Reading →
Saturday 2nd November 2019 Reading Buses owned Courtney Buses are making significant changes to bus services for the Windsor to Heathrow corridor this weekend. The improved timetable and revamp includes a smart new branding with buses sporting an updated Thames Valley livery for colour coded routes. I travelled over to the eastern end of what we... Continue Reading →
Tuesday 29th October 2019 It's good to see Stagecoach introducing another new commercial inter-urban bus route with the Group's Yorkshire company trailblazing a brand new service between Chesterfield and Nottingham this week. The new X1 provides an attractive alternative to the long standing Pronto branded route Stagecoach East Midlands operate jointly with TrentBarton running every... Continue Reading →
Saturday 26th October 2019 TfL's policy of redeploying buses from Zone 1 routes into the suburbs moved forward a couple more centimetres today with the launch of brand new route 335 linking the expanding residential development at Kidbrooke with Blackheath and North Greenwich for its 'Millennium Leisure Park' (basically posh looking sheds with retail, restaurants,... Continue Reading →
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